


Reform Without Practice

by abriata



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 18:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abriata/pseuds/abriata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; for, thus friends absent speak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reform Without Practice

**Author's Note:**

> For [TSN Week](http://tsnweek.tumblr.com/), "Letters"

"Letters are above all useful as a means of expressing the ideal self; and no other method of communication is quite so good for this purpose.  In letters we can reform without practice, beg without humiliation, snip and shape embarrassing experiences to the measure of our own desires…"  
– Elizabeth Hardwick

 

There's something in the bottom of his bag that's been preventing his papers from going in straight. It's been driving Eduardo crazy all day.

He takes the papers and folders out and sets them on the corner of his desk to be sorted through at a later date, then removes the laptop. He slides his hand into both compartments, but he can't feel anything besides the cables in the outside pocket. He unzips it, pulling the charging cables out for his computer and phone, and with the phone's cable comes a small black USB drive, clattering out onto the desk surface. He frowns and picks it up.

It's completely, plainly black, no markings distinguishable at all. There's not even a brand name or a logo, probably because it was worn of a long time ago. The sides are scratched and scraped up from multiple run-ins with the floor and various rougher surfaces.

Eduardo remembers this flashdrive. He just doesn't know where it came from.

It plugs into his computer with a happy little ding, and the window of the new drive pops up seconds later. It's full of files, rows upon rows of plain and rich text documents and outdated Word formats. Eduardo stares at the screen.

**10/11/04** says one file, and **NOW** says another, and, the very first file, **AAA–READ THIS NOW, MARK**.

Back at Harvard, Mark was always unsurprisingly difficult to get ahold of. Notes left around the suite got ignored: he either assumed they were for Chris or Dustin and didn't read them or he read them and ignored them anyway; Eduardo always bet it was the latter. You couldn't send him reminders directly, either. He never answered phone calls and he wasn't reliable about answering text messages – probably because he almost never had his phone on him, anyway, and if he didn't it was only charged about half the time. He was almost equally bad about answering his emails. He'd get to them in ten, twenty minutes if he was at his laptop and not busy; but when was Mark ever at his computer and not busy? When he was coding, he ignored everything, including his emails. He'd get to them right away as soon as he was done, even before getting food or passing out and definitely before checking his phone, but when he'd code for days at a time, it wasn't always possible to wait the twelve, fifteen, eighteen hours that would pass before he'd answer his email.

Eduardo had discovered one day, almost completely on accident, that he _would_ answer messages left on a USB drive.

What had happened was this: Eduardo had an important assignment due, and his printer wasn't working, and he wasn't going to pay to print from the university's machines when he had three friends all with perfectly acceptable printers. He'd borrowed Mark's laptop just long enough to plug his USB drive in and print out the essay, but he'd left the drive plugged in when Dustin had distracted he and Mark. He'd gotten his USB drive back two days later when he'd found it on Mark's desk.

When Eduardo had plugged it into his own computer, he'd found a pissy little note from Mark in a plain text document, griping about how it got in the way of his typing when he was using his laptop. Mark had apparently found it connected, recorded his annoyances on the nearest available surface, which happened to be said annoying flashdrive, then unplugged and forgotten about it.

Which is where Eduardo had gotten the idea. If it was only an annoyance when Mark was using his laptop, it wouldn't be very useful, because Mark did most of his work from his desktop. However, the drive had a little blinking light that changed colors, from red to green to blue, and Mark also did most of his coding in the dark. Before Eduardo left that night, he typed up an answering note, saved on the drive as **Hey, Mark** , and plugged the drive into Mark's desktop.

The drive had been thrown at his head the next day, and Mark had told him irritably that leaving him a cute note to remember to eat wasn't helpful if he wasn't going to also provide food, since Dustin's like a fucking Hoover and always eats everything. Eduardo, because he'd been pleased at discovering this new method of communicating, had offered to get pizza.

They'd done that from then on. Mark seemed to like it, even, appending new documents to the fuller and fuller drive – Eduardo had gotten a second, separate one for schoolwork, because it also turned out that Mark had a petty habit of either defiling or "helpfully editing" his homework if it was saved on the drive he was speaking to Eduardo through – and while it wasn't the perfect solution – it still lacked that crucial element of immediate interpersonal communication – it was a hell of a lot more effective than sticking a post-it note on his screen, which he just ripped off and threw away.

But Eduardo has no idea where the drive came from now. He'd lost it at Harvard, ages ago when Mark had left and they were no longer speaking to each other anyway and Eduardo had no use for it. He'd assumed it had gotten left in his dorm room when he graduated.

Obviously not. Barring that, there was still the question of how it ended up in his bag, since he certainly didn't put it there.

He scrolls down through the files – and Jesus, he hadn't realized there were so many of them, how could they have possibly had this much to say to each other? – but doesn't remember any of them well enough to know if there's been any new additions. There's no new file types that couldn't have been put on it in 2004. Reluctantly, Eduardo starts opening the files to see if anything has been added beyond the college years' squabbling messages.

\---

Four hours of close perusal had turned nothing up. Eduardo, more than a little pissed, stores the drive back in his back, where the slightly uneven shape it makes his bag reminds him every time he goes to work. It's still there when he goes to the next quarterly shareholder meeting, three months later. He'd been planning on skipping this one, since there was really no reason to go – they send out transcripts anyway, and it really only takes one visit a year to look as if you're being professional instead of avoiding someplace like the plague. He's never gone to more than one meeting a year before, but he goes this time because he needs to know.

Eduardo asks a very dim, very helpful employee where Mark's desk is. He tells him, nodding when Eduardo says thank you without any question as to why an investor wants to go to Mark's incredibly messy desk when he won't even be there. Eduardo plugs the drive into Mark's computer and then returns, satisfied, to the conference room.

\---

When he gets back to his hotel room that night – he's not quite willing to fly in from New York, attend a meeting, and then fly back out the exact same day; he has his limits – he pulls out his laptop to to check his email. Maybe he shouldn't be, but he's surprised when the little black USB stick appears with it. He's still not sure how it got into his bag. It has to be Mark, it has to be, but he was sitting at the same table as Eduardo the whole time; he shouldn't even have had time to go to his desk to find it, never mind somehow get it back to Eduardo.

Eduardo's palms are sweating a little when he plugs it in.

The new file is easy to spot. The new, crisp Word document format stands out amongst the older, cheaper-looking icons, and besides, Mark's new file is sitting right next to Eduardo's on the top row, titled **WTF–2**.

Eduardo's message had been short and to the point:

>   
> 
> 
> Mark? Why did you give this to me?  
> 

Mark has replied likewise:

>   
> I wanted to know if you remembered it. Besides, Dustin and I have a long-standing bet on whether you'd resume speaking to me first.  
> 

Eduardo grits his teeth and carefully opens a new file.

**WTF–3**

>   
>  Of course I remembered it. And no, I haven't resumed speaking to you, much less first. This doesn't constitute speaking. This barely constitutes communicating.  
> 

It's unsatisfying, not knowing whether he'll get a response, but since he doesn't really want one, Eduardo drops the flashdrive off in a manila envelope at the Facebook offices before his flight out the next morning.

\---

He was expecting, a little, to have to wait until the next shareholder's meeting. He's not, however, entirely surprised this time when he opens the folder with the materials from the last meeting – transcript, reports, updated contact information and policies booklets – and finds the USB drive included, looking sadly out of place against the crisp, expensive papers. 

Eduardo plugs it in, and no, he's not curious; this whole thing is slightly annoying and probably a little immature, since if Mark wants to talk to him there are better ways to do it. But of course, he doesn't want to. He wants Eduardo to talk to him first, so he can win his stupid bet.

Definitely immature.

**I was tired of WTF**

>   
>  It's a form of communication. You're typing words to me, I'm typing words to you. It's the technologically-advanced version of mail. Since it's a form of communication, and you started it, you definitely began speaking to me first. "Speaking" doesn't necessarily mean exchanging vocal sounds, you know. If it did, then we'd have to say we actually began doing that long ago, when we had to talk to each other at events. I think we'd both agree that doesn't count as any form of meaningful communication.  
> 

Eduardo rolls his eyes and opens his reply.

**WTF still stands**

> > The technologically-advanced version of mail is email, which I'm almost certain you've heard of. And if we're going to use "speaking" in a colloquial, non-definitive way, then I maintain you started it when you sent me the USB drive in the first place. That was a definite overture in communication and absolutely the beginning.  
> 

Eduardo refuses to mail the USB drive back. He's going to see Mark in two weeks at the tech conference in LA. Mark's going to be presenting and Eduardo is going to scout out any new or promising start-ups; Eduardo will find a way to give it to him then.

\---

He ends up handing it to Mark's assistant by slipping it into her hand and saying Mark dropped it. She has no idea who he is; she smiles politely and then tucks it into her purse, muttering something unfavorable about Mark's tendency to lose things. Eduardo bites back his smile and retreats to his place in the audience.

And _again_ , the next day, he finds it returned to his possession. This time it's in one of the many goodie bags that get handed out at conferences like this. Eduardo thinks of how often he just throws away these bags, him and everyone else, and gets irrationally angry at the thought that Mark gave it back to him in a way that was so likely to get it lost.

Still, it's time to see what Mark has to say.

**No, it doesn't**

>   
>  This is a slightly devolved cousin to email. We're physically trading electronic messages, so my comparison is not an entirely wrong one. And I think "communication" requires that there be a deliberate intent from one party to convey information to another. When I sent you the USB drive, there was no information included. When you returned it, however, there was.  
> 

Eduardo shakes his head and begins to type out his reply, and makes a note to figure out the next time he can plausibly slip the drive back into Mark's grasp.

The next shareholder's meeting comes and goes. Eduardo attended, of course, and many other events he hadn't needed to besides, because for some reason, Mark has been attending every event he has the slightest reason to. Eduardo has as well, because he's come to rely on Mark being there. He's tentatively begun to believe that Mark's going to them for the same reason.

\---

The first message that has nothing to do with arguing over the definition of communication or whether Mark has been careless in the ways he returns the drive to Eduardo is named **QUESTION**. Eduardo is so surprised to see it that he takes a break to get a cup of coffee before he opens it.

>   
>  Did you reread them?  
> 

Eduardo knows what Mark's referring to. All of their old notes, which Mark claimed were getting in the way, have been archived into a folder. The folder isn't named. Eduardo doesn't blame Mark for leaving it untitled. Eduardo would've had a hard time labeling their past, too.

It takes a lot more courage to type out his response than anything involving a blank Word document should.

**Response, and Question 2**

>   
>  Yes. I'd forgotten most of what we used to talk about. I forgot how _much_ we used to talk. Did you?

> Where did you get this drive? Why did you keep it?  
> 

A few weeks ago, Eduardo wouldn't have been able to ask the last question. A few months ago, he might not even have thought to. It's still incredibly difficult to prevent himself from going back in and deleting the last line. Instead of succumbing to the nervous, embarrassing tension, he pulls out his phone.

He'd also been wondering if Mark has been rearranging his schedule as much as Eduardo has, and Eduardo thinks it's time one of them is proactive.

He texts Dustin to ask if Mark will be at the upcoming London Technology Conference. Dustin's presenting, but there's no reason Mark should be there. Eduardo hadn't planned on going either. There's really no reason for either of them to be there, but Eduardo strongly suspects they both will be.

_Yeah, maybe_ , Dustin replies a while later. Then: _Why?_

Eduardo has no way of knowing whether that last one actually came from Dustin. _Hoping to see him there_

\---

If there's ever going to be a chance for him to get an idea of Mark's goal in this whole thing, this conference is it. He arrives early and, for a moment, considers paying off the security guards to alert him if Mark or Dustin comes through. Careful consideration forces him to admit that might be a little desperate, and instead he takes a seat on the second level, overlooking the doors below, and watches for them.

They arrive a little before lunch, and Eduardo can see the moment they walk in that Mark is looking for him. He's letting Dustin lead him along, but he's watching all the people they pass. Eduardo feels warm and touches the flash drive sitting in his pocket.

It's more difficult than he expected it would be to slip away at the end of Dustin's presentation. He manages to get to the back of the stage, finding Dustin's bag and sliding the drive into a side pocket, but if he waits a few minutes, less even, he should see Mark. He leaves, but he wants to stay.

\---

Breaking all convention, Mark returns the drive in a plain envelope, hand-addressed to Eduardo. Eduardo shakes it out and almost drops it when a second flash drive falls out into his hand, too. He plugs the old one into his computer, eyeing the sleek metal of the new one and leaving his dinner on the counter to get cold.

**You are a dick** greets him, and he laughs a little while he opens the document.

>   
>  Put the new drive in, moron.  
> 

"Bite me," Eduardo mutters, and puts the other one in.

**Still a dick**

>   
>  Fuck you for saying you wanted to see me and then avoiding me at the conference.

> The old one was full. Use this one from now on, unless you want to delete the files from the old one.

> Did I forget how much we used to talk, did I forget what we used to talk about, or did I reread the files? You need to be more clear about what you're asking. I never forgot what we talked about, and yes, I've reread the files. More than once. I've had the drive a long time. You sent most of the messages to remind me to eat or to yell at me for being late. Looking at them as an example of our friendship, you'd think I was always late.  
> 

Eduardo breathes out and reads the message again. Then once more. He's suddenly abruptly frustrated with this mode of communication. It's slow and unsatisfying and inconcrete. He and Mark have spent a lot of time talking and most of it's been about nothing at all.

**I'd apologize but I don't believe in lying**

>   
>  You've never told me how you got it in the first place. I had it at Harvard until I graduated. How did you end up with it?

> And yeah, you were always late. Perpetually.

> Have we filled up the rest of the drive already? We haven't written that much.  
> 

Taking Mark's lead, he mails it directly back. He even goes one step further, paying for priority shipping. Still, they give him an expected delivery date of three days hence and it feels like too long to wait.

\---

When the return time is factored in – though Mark has taken it one step further _yet_ and paid for overnight shipping, and this is clearly getting a little ridiculous – it's a little less than a week before Eduardo gets his reply.

**Your response to being called a dick is basically "oops"?**

>   
>  Chris gave it to me. He found it in your room after you left and he said he thought it was mine. I think he read the files and knew otherwise, though. It was the first thing he said to me after that summer that didn't have anything directly to do with Facebook.

> We've written enough. Besides, it's a small drive. USB drives didn't used to be 16 gb and up. This new one is, though. We'll have plenty of space to fill up.  
> 

Eduardo stares at the last line for a long time.

16 GB could – would – take years to use. Even if the documents were 500 KB each – and they wouldn't all be, most of them would be less than half that – they'd have room for more than thirty-three thousand and five hundred documents. If they were exchanging one document each per day – and they're not, not even close – that would still be enough space to last them over 46 years.

Eduardo thinks about 46 years' worth of commitment. It's a lot. It's more than Mark has ever offered, and it would be stable; reliable. Eduardo would come to depend on getting the messages, would look forward to the packages in the mail. In a few years they would probably get tired of waiting for the physical mail and they'd probably migrate to email. Their rates of messages sent would increase. They'd get to know each other again.

But Eduardo thinks about the scratched, sad old USB drive, and he doesn't want to be staring at his computer screen this same time next year.

**Speaking of "Oops"**

>   
>  I don't want to have to fill up 16 GB.  
> 

\---

He's talking to Dustin, ignoring Dustin's unsubtle attempts to pry information from him, when he hears Mark yelling.

"Dustin!" he snaps, slamming the door open. "What have I told you about not touching the fucking flash drives?"

"He didn't," Eduardo says. In unnecessary counterpoint, Dustin raises his hands in surrender.

Mark stops in the doorway. He stares.

"Hello, Mark," Eduardo says.

Mark opens his mouth. He seems to be deciding what to say. Eduardo doesn't begrudge him the wait; anything is better than 46 years. If Eduardo had the urge to plug the drive directly into Mark's computer before finding Dustin, well, he'll blame it on nostalgia.

"Sorry I'm late," Mark says.

"It's alright," Eduardo says. "I wasn't exactly on time, either."

In the background, Dustin makes a noise like he's choking. Eduardo glances around, sees his comically frozen face, and turns back to Mark. Mark's face isn't a whole lot better. "I hope he hasn't lost too much," Eduardo says. "Now it's pretty undeniable I've spoken first."

Mark frowns, but his face clears a moment later. "No," he says. "You misunderstood. He bet you _would_ talk to me first."

"And you were sure enough I never would that you bet him on it?" Eduardo says. "Sorry to make you lose."

Mark smiles. "I haven't lost."

"To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart."   
– Phyllis Theroux


End file.
